Lily's Choice
by patgabz
Summary: The Tardis has always had a mind of her own, but when she disappears on the Doctor and the Ponds and plays host to a young witch and wizard, she puts events into motion leading up to the greatest sacrifice of all time.
1. Godric's Hollow, October 31, 1981

_You'll dream about that box - it'll never leave you. Big and little at the same time…Brand new and ancient… and the bluest blue ever._

_And the times we had, eh? Would've had... Never had._

_In your dreams, they'll still be there._

**Godric's Hollow, October 31****st****, 1981**

The streets of Godric's Hollow were teeming with children dressed in costumes that varied from sheet ghosts to movie franchise ghouls, princesses to brides, and faeries to vampires. They dragged their work-wearied parents from house to house, block after block in their frenzied quest for sweets, dreading the words, "Alright, I think you've collected enough…" Shrieks of fear and delight, shouts for friends to slow down - it was perhaps the noisiest and busiest night of the year for the village, but for the Potters, it was perhaps one of the quietest Halloweens since Lily and James had married.

The house was devoid of any of its usual holiday decorations. There were no laughing jack-o-lanterns, no floating lights, no candy corn cats strolling around on the lawn (Lily's handiwork), no mint candy floss spider webs (James's attempt at upstaging his wife), and no bottomless bowl of sweets waiting on the front porch for tiny, eager little hands to snatch up. But stranger still was the fact that no one seemed to notice any of this – children and parents alike moved right past the home of one of the most beloved couples in the village without so much as a curious glance. It was almost as if no one _could _notice it.

Lily stood by the window hugging herself, silently watching all the commotion out on the streets with a wistful look on her face. Every so often, she'd busy herself with pulling at the frayed edges of the cuffs of her blue, monogrammed sweater, a gift from Molly a few Christmases back. It was Lily's favorite – warm, soft, and there were pulls in the side from when she had tried to squeeze into it when she had been pregnant with Harry.

James sat on the floor tinkering with a new toy broom set that Sirius had brought over the other night as a gift for his godson, since the first had accidentally been crushed by Rubeus when he had come to visit with Dumbledore the previous week. He wore his own Weasley sweater, a beautiful scarlet and gold argyle patterned piece. Even after all these years, he still avidly showcased his house pride.

"Harry should be asleep by now," Lily said, her gaze still fixated out the window. "He seemed to notice that things were different this year."

James chuckled as he tucked his wand behind his ear and looked up at his wife. "Nonsense. He's too little to understand any of it."

Lily shrugged. "He just seemed like he had been looking out for something all day, that's all." She sighed and pulled the curtains shut, blocking out their view of the street below, and sat down in the large cushioned recliner chair by the fireplace. She pulled her knees up and yanked the hem of her sweater over them, until only the ankles of her leggings poked out. She reached up to her hair and started to pull out the glittering spider barrettes she had put in that morning to try and feel festive, and that Harry had spent lunchtime trying to yank out. Soft, scarlet curls fell around her face.

"I really do like when you let it down," James remarked with a smile. "Reminds me of when I used to try and get your attention by sticking stuff in it."

Lily snorted. "_That's _the reason I started keeping it all tied up in the first place. There is absolutely nothing even remotely romantic about an idiot trying to tangle a snitch in your hair." James smirked playfully. "But it got your attention, didn't it?" Lily rolled her eyes and threw a barrette at his head, but he caught it single handedly and put it into the pocket of his jeans. "You can get that later," he said with a wink. Lily smiled and shook her head at her husband's antics, absentmindedly running a hand through her hair to check for knots. "I might just wait until tomorrow, actually."

James feigned a pouty expression. "Oh, you're no fun."

"And _you're _supposed to be putting that together for Harry." She gestured to the mess of twigs and stirrups and the long, polished handle of the mini Cleansweep. "He's going to be really disappointed if he wakes up and daddy hasn't got a broom ready for him."

"He's going to be even more disappointed," James countered, taking his wand out from behind his ear and placing it on the coffee table, "if he wakes up and daddy does have a broom for him, but it doesn't work properly because mummy rushed daddy through it while he was trying to put it together."

Lily giggled. "Well, regardless, daddy's going to be disappointed because his cheek just earned him a night spent alone on his side of the bed."

James grinned and raised his hands in mock surrender as he got back to his feet. "Well," he replied, dropping a light kiss on the top of his wife's head, "that just means mummy's going to miss out on the opportunity to have some top quality, magical, mind blowing –"

_**CRASH!**_

Lily jumped out of her chair, and James went rigid. They could hear the faint tinkering echoes of whatever had just been shattered downstairs.

"Sirius?" Lily whispered questioningly, trying to ignore the way her heart jumped into her throat when James shook his head. "He said he couldn't come until –"

A second, louder crash cut him off. James blanched.

"_Get Harry!"_

Lily bolted from the room and took off down the hallway to the nursery, not even daring to look back as she heard her husband take to the stairs. She was vaguely aware of the sound of more shattering glass over the roar of the blood rushing in her ears. She was painfully aware that her palms were slick with sweat as she fumbled with the doorknob to her son's room, bursting in and frightening from his sleep. Harry erupted into tears, but Lily knew at this point shushing him would be pointless.

He knew they were here.

More sounds of destruction came from downstairs. James cried out in pain, and Lily resisted the urge to run to his aid. _This was the plan,_ she had to remind herself as her hands shook while she clasped Harry tightly in one arm, ran to the closet, and blindly groped along the top shelf for the invisibility cloak. _This was what they had agreed to. _Harry's cries escalated with is mother's growing fear of dread as she came up empty handed.

_Where the hell was the cloak?_

"RUN! LILY, RUN! IT'S HIM!"

A deep, echoing hiss.

A flash of green from the largest crack in the floorboards.

The sound of groaning stairs beneath the weight of slow, steady footsteps.

Harry's screams.

Her own fear, shrieking within her head.

Lily could feel the hot tears of defeat sliding down her cheeks, and she knew she only had seconds. She hugged and kissed her son fiercely for what she knew would be the final time, and set him back down gently in his crib. Harry quieted suddenly, and stared wide-eyed and fearful up at his mother. Lily forced a smile, and stroked his hair. She could feel herself quivering, could feel the cold crawling up her spine. But this was the part where she had to be brave, where she had to resist the fear with all of her might.

"Be brave," she whispered. "Be strong." She held her hand tenderly to the side of Harry's face.

"_Mummy loves you."_

The door to the nursery creaked open behind her, but Lily kept her gaze fixated on her son.

"Stand aside, woman."

The voice was cold. Emotionless. Lily could feel the weight of a wand pointed at her back, but she remained motionless, her eyes locked onto Harry. "Please," she whispered.

The voice behind her laughed. "Do not be foolish. Stand aside, and I will spare you."

Lily spun around, and flung her arms against the bars of the crib like a shield. "Please," she begged, hysteria seeping into her voice, "please, not my son! Take me! Take me instead!"

Slitted, red glowing eyes filled with all things evil in this world stared back at her, unmoved. A pale, skeletal hand brought the wand level with her chest. "You will step aside, or you will die with him."

Lily saw it then, the flicker in the corner of her eye. The glimpse of blue from the window. The quiet rushing of a familiar but strange wind.

It was then that she knew it truly was the end.

Slamming her eyes shut, she began to scream, _"_Please! Please, I beg you! PLEASE!"

Cruel laughter. "Then you make your choice."

"_NOT HARRY!"_

"_**AVADA KEDAVRA!"**_

And then …blue. Everything…dissolving into blue…


	2. Somewhere in the Faarhë Nebula, 6987 AD

**Somewhere in the Faarh****ë**** Nebula 6987 A.D.**

The Ponds had gotten used to the strange things that could happen aboard the Tardis: the swimming pool liked to get too close to the library, the kitchen pantry would sometimes show up in Rory's closet, the wardrobes would have nothing inside of it except bow ties and fezzes on ornery Tuesdays, and – of course – the silly old girl had a tendency of stopping wherever she pleased, despite the Doctor's orders. But when they all woke up that fateful Wednesday (or perhaps it was Thursday – one could never be quite sure) to the sound of rain _inside _the Tardis, even the Ponds knew that something was amiss.

"Is there something wrong with the plumbing?" Amy asked as she searched a closet for an umbrella. Rory, who was suffering from a head cold, sniffled and shivered as he bundled up tighter in the three rain jackets the Doctor had found for him, and that his wife had insisted on him wearing all at once. The Doctor was working feverishly under the large glass floor beneath their feet, knee-deep in water as he tried desperately to untangle wires, cords, pumps and valves to find the source of the rain problem.

"No, nothing with the plumbing," he answered irritably. "I checked that last week, and everything was fine." He glanced up suddenly from a large polka-dotted tube he'd been inspecting and gave Amy an accusatory look. "Unless, of course, there's another make-up brush you've forgotten to tell me that you accidentally flushed…"

Amy crossed her arms indignantly. "It was a one time thing! It fell out of my hand, and the seat was still up. Maybe you should've deactivated the automatic flush system."

The Doctor rolled his eyes and went back to his tinkering. Rory, meanwhile, went to go sit down on the stairs. His head was throbbing, his nose kept running, and his throat felt dryer than Alfava Metraxis. He could feel the cold and the damp of the Tardis's rainstorm creeping into his skin, even through all the layers that Amy had all but bullied him into, and he shivered and coughed as something that sounded suspiciously like thunder echoed down from one of the halls. "Is it supposed to do that?" he asked nervously as a second rumble made its way to the control room. "Because to me, it almost sounds as if – "

The Doctor raised a hand to shush him. He had gone stock still, even though one of his goggles was half filled with rain water and his bow tie had come undone. Amy bit her lip worriedly as she waited for the Doctor to say something – anything! – or at least make some notion that he knew what was wrong with his police box.

"I think," he said after a moment of strained silence, "that we've crossed into another universe…"

As if to confirm it, a third rumble – this one the loudest by far – shook the control room and forced everyone to clap their hands over their ears. Rory pulled the hood of his jackets low down over his face, until nothing but his chin poked out from the bottom. "IS THERE ANY WAY YOU CAN MAKE IT STOP?" he shouted above the din. The Doctor swung himself up from under the control deck's floor and stopped Amy from toppling down the stairs. He scrambled over to his colorful array of many levers, switches, and buttons, and started frantically flipping and pushing them all.

"DOCTOR!" Amy called out as a piercing whistle began to shriek, "WHAT'S SO BAD ABOUT ANOTHER UNIVERSE? ISN'T IT JUST LIKE VISITING A PLANET? …ONLY…BIGGER?"

If it hadn't been so bloody loud, Amy might have been able to catch the Doctor's weary chuckle. "IF ONLY IT WERE THAT EASY!" he shouted. "IMAGINE, IF YOU WILL –" he was interrupted as the Tardis suddenly gave a nasty lurch, and the Ponds were sent skittering across the glass floor as he latched onto a metal railing " – THAT YOU'RE TRYING TO TAKE SOMETHING THE SIZE OF A GRAPEFRUIT, AND SHOOT IT OUT – " he was interrupted again as about half a dozen gizmos, gadgets, and alarms began to spin and light up all across the dashboard as Amy and Rory struggled for balance in the tilting Tardis " – A TUBE THE SIZE OF A COFFEE STIRRIR!"

The Ponds wore looks of identical confusion, albeit Rory's looked slightly green now. The Doctor sighed exasperatedly. "LET ME PUT IT THIS WAY: _WE'RE _THE GRAPEFRUIT!"

Amy shook her head. "BUT A GRAPEFRUIT DOESN'T FIT THROUGH A COF – "

"EXACTLY! BUT I LEFT OUT THE PART WHERE THE GRAPEFRUIT GETS SHRINK WRAPPED AND COMPACTED BY THE EQUIVALENT OF A MILLENNIA'S WORTH OF TIME PRESSURE!"

Rory looked like he was going to lose it at any moment now. "ENGLISH!" he yelled as the Tardis began to creak and groan in conjunction with the cacophony of its many alarms. "JUST TELL US WHETHER OR NOT THIS IS THE PART WHERE WE DIE!"

"DON'T WORRY!," the Doctor replied with a grim smile, "DEATH IS THE LEAST OF OUR WORRIES – THE TARDIS IS BEING COMPRESSED THROUGH A CRACK IN YOUR REALITY RIGHT NOW, SO IT CAN SLIP INTO ANOTHER UNIVERSE. SHE WAS BUILT FOR INTER-SPACE AND TIME TRAVEL – BUT NOT _THIS!_"

Amy blanched and latched on tightly to Rory's arm and the metal banister as the Tardis went into what felt like a corkscrew. "WHY IS IT DOING IT THOUGH?"

The Doctor didn't answer; he was attempting to stay wrapped around the railing while fishing in his jacket pocket for something. The Tardis felt like it was being _bombed _by something now, and Amy clasped Rory closer. _The Doctor will fix this,_ she told herself furiously. _The Doctor always fixes things, he always comes through!_

As if on cue, the Doctor whipped out his sonic and directed it at the tallest blue lever on the dash. It pushed itself up with a force that would have shattered any normal handle, and the Tardis came to a shuddering, Pond tossing, Doctor smashing halt. Steam erupted from under the control board, and the sirens were still blaring worse than ever, but Rory noticed with a bit of relief that it had stopped raining.

"Everybody out!" the Doctor shouted, scrambling to his feet. "Come along, Ponds! Time to vacate!" He hooked an arm through Amy's, grabbed Rory by the back of his collar, and all but ran out of the Tardis.

They had landed in what looked like a densely wooded forest, something you wouldn't be surprised to find on Earth. Common, dark, spooky – the Doctor deposited Amy and Rory unceremoniously on a nearby rock before pulling out his screwdriver again and sonically assessing their surroundings.

"Where are we?" Rory asked.

"_When _are we?" Amy added.

There was nothing but the hum of the sonic for a few moments while the Doctor worked, pausing to read the feedback on the analysis he ran. "Well, I've got good news and bad news," he finally said. "The good news is that we're most _definitely _in an alternate universe."

Rory coughed. "But I thought that was _bad?"_

The Doctor didn't look at Rory, but he nodded enthusiastically. "Oh yes, very bad, very bad indeed."

Amy pulled an elastic from her pocket to tie up her hair. "Then what on earth is the bad news?" she asked, crossed.

"The bad news," he explained, now turning to face the Ponds, "is that something - something big, and I mean _really _big, bigger than me – has gotten a hold of my Tardis, and _that's _what pulled us through to this universe. The bad news is that so long as this thing has a grip on the Tardis, we can't step foot inside it, or we risk the possibility of getting swallowed up by the pressure of time and space that had to condense to fit us through that blasted crack."

Rory felt his mouth go dry. "So we're stuck?" he panicked.

"No, no, don't be silly," the Doctor said, patting him condescendingly on the head. "Well…actually, yes, in a way, we are quite stuck. But you see, I think I've figured out whatgot us here!" He smiled his wide, childish, impish grin, and stood with his hands on his hips, waiting for his companions to take the bait.

"Well, are you going to tell us?" Amy asked irritably. The Doctor rolled his eyes. "The Amazing, Yet Ever So Impatient Amelia Pond, _of course _I'm going to tell you." He glanced around suddenly as if to make sure no one was listening, but Amy and Rory chalked it up to a dramatic pause for even more feigned dramatic effect. He placed a hand on each of their shoulders, and then, with one word, he completely and utterly lost them.

"_Magic!"_


	3. Spinners End, July 31, 1968

**Spinners End, July 31, 1968**

"_Who's the weirdest there is in all the land?_

_Who will turn you into a frog with just the touch of her hand?_

_Who thinks she's mummy and daddy's favorite girl,_

_but is really just the biggest freak in the world?_

_Lily! Lily! Liiiilyyyyy!"_

The jeering and the taunting faded as the children ran laughing back up the road, back towards the worn-out looking houses with the high, pristine white fences running around their perimeter. To a passerby, this juxtaposition of old and new may have seemed odd, but to Lily Evans, the fences were a reminder that she was different. Made fun of. Shunned. Outcasted.

The fences were there because she was a freak.

She sat motionless in the swing seat, her fists balled tightly around a handful of fabric from her dress. It was wrinkled now, but it was the only part of the dress that hadn't gotten stained when the nasty children had started to fling dirt clods at her. Lily had just been sitting in the swing when they all came gallivanting by, singing their wretched song, and then it only took one monkey for the rest of them to do. She didn't say a single word while they dirtied her. She just sat in the swing, head bent to keep it from getting in her eyes (and so that they wouldn't get the satisfaction of seeing any of her tears, if they happened to seep out), and waited for them to get bored and leave. Lily had noted that for the first time, Petunia wasn't among them.

She wasn't sure if she should take this as a sign that her sister was starting to accept her, or if she was just terrified that Lily would turn her into a tea cozy.

"Those _brutes!"_

Lily glanced up at the familiarity of Severus's voice. He was coming from the opposite direction the children had left, which meant they wouldn't have crossed paths with him. But he must've heard the singing from their hiding place further up the path, towards the top of the hill, because he was positively fuming with all the rage that a 9 year old could possibly possess without exploding. His too-long black hair was knotted, wet, and littered with leaves, but it stood on end like the fur of an agitated cat. His chest was heaving beneath his muddied shirt, but Lily knew it wasn't from the running – Severus was an excellent runner, the bullies made sure of that. His backpack hung awkwardly off his shoulder, while his hands were curled into fists that he trembled with the force of cementing to his sides, as if he were trying to keep himself from running after the other children and pummeling them senseless.

"It's ok Sev," Lily said quietly as she hopped off the swing. "They didn't hurt me."

"Didn't hurt you? _Didn't hurt you?" _Severus threw his backpack to the ground, and Lily cringed. She hated when she made him upset.

"Honestly Sev! They just threw dirt at me this time." She held out her skirt to show him. The angry little boy flinched and turned away, as if offended. But Lily knew better. She knew Severus just like she knew her books – she knew the ins and outs of his story, the good, and the bad… And she knew that even though his entire body was rigid with rage, on the inside, he was really just upset with himself for not getting to the swing set fast enough.

Lily reached out and took one of his hands, slowly unfolding each of his fingers until his palm lay open in her own. Severus's lips were pressed tightly together to form a thin white line of fury, but a slight glistening in the corners of his eyes gave him away. Lily smiled and gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. "Come on Sev," she said cheerily, tugging him up the hill. "Let's go play pretend. We never finished our Hogwarts adventure the other day! I don't want to be Helga anymore – that book you let me borrow last week, I finished reading it and found Rowena much more appealing. Do you still want to play Godric, or - ?"

Her question fell short as Severus wrenched his hand from hers, and sat down suddenly in a grassy dip on the hill. He drew his boney knees to his chest, wrapped his arms tightly around them, and ducked his head. "Sev?" Lily looked down worriedly at him. "Sev, are you alright?"

He mumbled something in response, but she couldn't make it out. She squatted down beside him, careful to mind her dress. "Sev, if this is about the other kids, I swear I'm -"

"I know you're alright Lily! You're always alright!" His face was lifted now, and the tears were falling freely. "But did you ever stop to think that maybe I'm not alright, that maybe I don't want this anymore?"

Lily was taken aback by the outburst, her expression torn between hurt and confused. She remained frozen in silence beside him, as he sniffled and dragged his ratty sleeve across his nose, shaking his head miserably. "I don't want to be a wizard anymore, Lily. I just…I just want to be normal." Severus ducked his head back down onto his knees, as his thin shoulders began to shake with quiet sobs.

Lily was accustomed to seeing Severus cry. When one of the bullies had punched him in the face last summer, he had been a mess of snot, blood, and tears for hours. He had cried when he had accidentally burned himself with the potions kit his mother had gotten him for Christmas, when his father had beaten him after too many Firewhiskies, and when he had seen the welts on her arms from when Petunia had tried to leave her tied to the school flag post (some sort of witch-at-the-stake reference, no doubt). She didn't think any less of him for crying, but this – giving up – it filled her with a rage that could rival even that of Severus's worst days.

Which was probably why she stood up abruptly, moved quickly to stand in front of Severus, and pushed him with enough force to have him land flat on his back with a loud _thump!_ in the dying grass.

She glared down at him as he stared up at her with wide, frightened eyes, and crossed her arms as she nudged him roughly with the toe of her shoe. "Severus Snape," she said irritably, "you stop that nonsense talk right this very minute." Lily pulled out a spare handkerchief from the pocket of her dress and handed it to him. "Now, stand up, wipe your face, and then we are going to play pretend. Got it?"

Severus blew his nose loudly into the handkerchief, made as if to hand it back to Lily, and then thought better of it and stuffed it into his pocket. He nodded mutely as he got to his feet, wiping his eyes furiously on the front of his dirtied shirt. Lily was smiling when he finally looked up at her, and she resumed her grip on his hand and once again began trudging up the hill as if nothing had ever deterred her from her original plans in the first place.

"I think we should find a new adventure today, Sev," she said cheerily. "What do you think? Should we scout out the other end of the pond? Scope out Spinner's end?" Lily chuckled. "Or perhaps, should we brave the wrath of Petunia and go play at the park by my house?"

That made Severus smile a bit, and he opened his mouth to offer his suggestion, but something up ahead had come into view and he stopped suddenly. Lily spun around, ready to knock him senseless if he started in on another crying/pity fest, but the way his mouth was hanging open made her turn back around, squinting up at the top of the hill where the giant willow tree marked their hideout. But something else was there now besides the willow, something that looked entirely too out of place here by the hill-top pond.

"Is that…?" She trailed off, completely at a loss for words, but Sev nodded. Lily shook her head. "But what on earth is a _police box _doing here?"

Severus smiled, and gripped her hand a little tighter. "Well, looks like we found our adventure for today."


End file.
